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ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

HI everyone,

I am pretty new to zbrush and so far, it is absolutely amazing and I have lots of fun with it :smiley:

Just some little background knowledge about me. Until I started with zbrush I have always been modeling in my 3D software, so I know how the topology of a character should look.

My question would be, when is the best way to do topology in zbrush? Are you planning it out from the beginning, doing a basic model with the right topology and then sculpt on it? Are you sculpting the whole character without really taking care of it and then doing it afterwards? What’s your way? I am still a little bit unsure about it and it would be great to have your input. I looked into some tutorials, but they are mainly showing how to do it. But for me, it would be more interesting to know the general working order.

Thanks a lot and have a lovely evening

Anna

#2

well since any pro is to busy here to answer to questions I will share what I’ve have learned.
Of course if you are using dynamesh then the most beautiful thing is that you don’t have to worry about topology (3ds max was my program of first choice so believe me i know what I am saying). When You get main shape of your model that is the part when you suppose to do retopology and ten subdivide and details and that is the one way, other is that you sculpting all the way on dyna and then project all details to retopolized subdivided mesh.

I’m no pro, so I could be wrong :wink:

#3

Hey,

thanks a lot for your answer. So as far as I get it, I can either build a clean model from the beginning and then do all the sculpting, or I just go crazy in modeling and then project the whole model on another one.

I guess I will try out both ways and see what suits best :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot again for your help.

#4

well here maybe I was not exactly precise…at the end of being crazy with dynamesh, you make copy of your subtool then make a retopology at this copy, after that subdivide and project all details from dynameshed tool to retopologized copy :wink:

#5

I was actually just wondering this. I’ve been skipping that step for a while, to me it seemed as long as your topology resolution was dense in your areas of detail the sculpt looks fine regardless of what the topology is doing on the micro level. You’d then retopo with proper topology once everything was done and bake your maps. (I’m thinking of this from an organic/creature modeling perspective)